Two new investigations have been opened in Paris into cyberattacks targeting educational establishments in recent days in France, the Paris prosecutor's office said on Wednesday, which had already opened an investigation into threats against high schools in the Ile-de-France region on March 21.
An investigation “concerns the messages broadcast via the Digital Work Spaces (ENT) of Île-de-France colleges on the night of March 26 to 27, 2024,” indicated the prosecution, requested by AFP.
Last night, several educational establishments were affected by new attacks targeting ENT/PCNs.
A message of vigilance was sent to all school heads and principals.
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— Académie de Paris (@Academie_Paris) March 27, 2024
“We come from the Islamic State”
More than fifty educational establishments in Paris, mainly colleges, were targeted on Wednesday by new attack threats transmitted via the ENT, according to the rectorate and the town hall.
“During the day of Wednesday March 27, I will blow everything up (…), I put C4 everywhere in the high school and in the classes”, it was written in particular, as well as: “We come from the Islamic State » in some messages.
Also read “It’s weird to experience that”: in Castelnaudary, a high school in shock after a bomb threat
Some messages were also accompanied by a video which would present “a terrorist dressed as a soldier, speaking perfect French explaining how to fatally strike different parts of the body,” a police source confided to Le Parisien.
A survey to “centralize”
The investigations were entrusted to the Brigade for the fight against cybercrime of the Parisian direction of the judicial police (BL2C), as in the investigation which had been opened for threats against high schools in the Ile-de-France region on the night of March 20 to 21.
The other investigation "is intended to centralize the investigations opened by the various public prosecutor's offices concerning messages disseminated via the ENTs of other regional jurisdictions", under the national jurisdiction of the anti-cybercrime section of the Paris public prosecutor's office, according to the same source.
These three investigations concern the offenses of attacks on an automated data processing system implemented by the State, threats of death or dangerous damage to property against a person responsible for the mission of public service, apology for terrorism by means of an online public communication service, provocation to an act of terrorism, identity theft and disclosure of false information in order to make people believe in dangerous destruction, the prosecution listed.